


Jealous

by patchwork_panda



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 11:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15817938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchwork_panda/pseuds/patchwork_panda
Summary: Shiro sees Keith and Griffin getting cozy at a celebration party and realizes he is JEALOUS.Some angst but has a fluffy happy ending. I needed a jealous Shiro fic and this happened.BTW part 0 (prequel fic) is up.





	Jealous

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this on my lunch break and in retrospect, I should've spent that time eating instead of depleting my brain cells further by writing this piece of trash.

He wasn’t the jealous type. 

Not him. Never had been. Not when he was just the pilot Takashi Shirogane, formerly known as the “Golden Boy” of the Garrison. Not even when he was “Shiro,” the Black Paladin and leader of Voltron. He couldn’t be. For the sake of his fellow Paladins, he, more than any of the others, needed to keep a cool head, otherwise there was no way they could have survived the countless battles. And if these younger versions of himself weren’t the jealous, possessive type, he certainly couldn’t be now, not when he had become Commander Shirogane, the acclaimed “Captain of the Atlas” whom many called a hero of Earth.

So when had it started?

And by when, he didn’t mean tonight, when they had all gathered in the mess hall, the biggest area in the compound, for a makeshift celebration. Alcohol was prohibited on the grounds so he knew there was no chance anyone could’ve been drunk. So there was no excuse for why Keith and James Griffin were cozying up to one another, laughing uproariously with their arms around each others’ shoulders. Similarly, there was no excuse for the pinched, tight feeling in his chest when he saw them. Shiro should be smiling too, grateful that the battle for Earth was over and happy that Keith had finally made up with the young cadet he decked all those years before. He should be thrilled that they’d smoothed over the differences which had landed them both in the disciplinary office as kids. But he wasn’t smiling.

And he wasn’t pleased.

When had it started?

The tightness in his chest was not unfamiliar to him. He first felt it when Keith, sure that the Galra were tracking them through his blade, had disappeared into the night and reappeared with Allura at his side in that small, cramped escape pod. At the time, Shiro thought it was worry, perhaps brotherly concern and he’d brushed the feeling aside when Keith returned to his side in the Red Lion, back where he belonged among his team.

The second time he felt it, it had seemed random and it had struck so out of nowhere that he was sure it might have been heartburn or some other medical condition. Keith said he was going to check out the pool and had come back with Lance of all people and for some reason they were both still in their swim trunks. Shirtless, of course. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen either of them like this. The Garrison did have a locker room after all. But he had no time to dwell on asking Coran if the healing pods took care of stomach bugs or simple asthma attacks--a Galra fleet was attacking and there would be time to figure it out later. But later, the feeling was gone and he never thought about it again.

Until they returned to Earth. While Shiro was occupied with other things, Keith had snuck off with Hunk, James and Veronica, to find and presumably save Hunk’s parents. Given how Keith was, this wouldn’t have bothered him. But there was that security footage of them hugging in a small room, alone, seemingly having a moment. Allura had said something along the lines of, “Aww” when it came up on the monitor but Shiro didn’t find it cute in the least.

And tonight, watching someone else throw his arm around Keith and pulling him close--so close, way too close--

There was a sickening crunch and the cup in his robotic hand collapsed in on itself, soda spilling over his hand and he let go before the liquid could seep into the circuits.

“Sorry, arm’s buggy,” he mumbled, retrieving it and throwing it in the trash on his way out. He had things he needed to figure out and to do so properly, he couldn’t stay in the room with them.

“Shiro? Where are you going?” someone called as he stalked out and down the hall.

Maybe it wasn’t entirely him. He was, after all, in a cloned version of himself, a body that had been enhanced in so many ways that it felt foreign to him at times. His bones were stronger and his endurance was improved; this was not the body of the sick man that he’d left for Kerberos with. This was a body grown by Haggar and the Druids in some sick Galran laboratory and this body, while his, was perverse in a way that the original Takashi Shirogane was not.

There was nothing missing in his memories as far as he could tell. He had the memories from before, all of them: from his childhood up until the day he “died” and became nothing more than soul data collected and preserved by the Black Lion. And he had the clone’s memories too. But there was something disturbing about the way the clone remembered Keith. Those memories were clearly tainted and the corruption had spread to the point where it affected the way he thought about Keith even now. So much so that he couldn’t trust his own opinions any more.

When he thought about Keith, the clone’s memories came to him, filtered through a lens of something he perceived as an intense longing. Perhaps it was a desire to be the Shiro who had mentored Keith from a young age or a desire to become the true Black Paladin like Keith had. But it wasn’t the yearning that bothered him. It was the undercurrent of raw, primal desire that terrified him to think about. He didn’t like to dwell on the implications of a cloned version of himself feeling such unbridled want towards Keith.

Luckily, the clone had never made a move. Too intimidated, he supposed. 

Much like the real thing.

Yes, now that he was back to himself and sure that he was indeed the old Shiro, just in a slightly different body, he could no longer be sure that it wasn’t his own mind and his own heart that felt the way the clone had in a much shorter span of time. He hated to think about anything to do with old, paranoid Slav, but he began to wonder in how many different realities would he--did he--fall in love with Keith. 

And what would he do once his feelings were fully realized?

For Keith’s sake, he should stay away.

“Hey, you okay?”

He didn’t look back. It was too dangerous to look at Keith directly when he felt like this. He didn’t want to know what he might do if he saw those beautiful dark eyes looking at him so softly.

“I’m fine.” Shiro managed to smile and patted his robotic arm. It was a poor excuse but the only one he had. “Still getting used to this thing, I guess. You should head back to the party. The Leader of Voltron could use a few photo ops.”

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Keith said crossly, point blank with arms folded. So he wasn’t fooled. Against his better judgement, Shiro looked back. Keith’s shoulders looked so broad back-lit like that from the distant glow of the mess hall. How far down the hallway had he come after Shiro?

Of course Keith would come to find him. It’s what he always did. Ever since he’d crash landed back on Earth, Keith had come to find him. But ever since the clone had run off, the tables had been turned. It used to be that Keith would run away and Shiro would chase after him. Now it was the other way around. Now everything was in reverse. 

Keith’s eyes looked pained.

“Why?” he asked, shrinking before Shiro’s eyes. “Did I do something wrong?”

Shiro’s chest hurt. Keith looked like the chided boy who was waiting for him outside the disciplinary office again. And so Shiro’s thoughts come round to James Griffin again.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Shiro sighed at last. He placed a hand over his eyes and rubbed at his temples. “I just wanted to give you some space to have fun. You deserve it.”

When he took his hand away, Keith was standing so close that Shiro had to take a step back.

“You wanted to give me ‘space?’“ Keith deadpanned. “Shiro, we’ve been in space for God knows how long. You’ve been avoiding me because you wanted me to ‘have fun?’”

The sarcasm in his voice was every bit as painful and biting as it needed to be. Shiro winced. Now it was Keith’s turn to rub his own temples to stave off the oncoming headache.

“Come on, Shiro. What’s this really about?”

“I’m serious!” Shiro sputtered. “We’ve all been fighting for years now, you’ve had some very hard times and if you want to hang out more with Griffin and Axca and Hunk and the others, you deserve to--”

“Wait, wait, hold on!” Keith’s face turned beet-red, his hands flapping in the air as he did some bizarre flustered dance with his arms. So cute, Shiro thought with a pang of longing. Then Keith’s eyes narrowed. Shiro had let down his guard and Keith had seen everything.

“Shiro, are you... jealous?!”

“No?”

It sounded unconvincing, even to his own rapidly burning ears. Keith’s hands were suddenly glued to his own stomach. His shoulders started shaking.

“Seriously?” he choked out between fits of laughter, “Is that why you rode back with Pidge? Because you were jealous of Axca? You’re avoiding me tonight because you saw me getting cozy with other people? Oh my God.”

“I know, it’s stupid,” Shiro groaned. “You’ve grown so much since we left Earth. You’re completely out of my league now--Look, I get it, I’m going okay? You don’t have to laugh.”

“Wait, Shiro!”

Keith’s hand abruptly latched onto to his wrist, his flesh-and-blood one and he pulls until Shiro is forced to turn around and look at him. His face was still very red and there were tears in the corners of his eyes from laughing but he looked happy. Happier than Shiro had ever seen him in the company of anybody else. Those eyes were for him.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this but the truth is, I always thought you were out of _my_ league,” Keith elaborated, his eyes lowering. “You were with Adam before and I always thought that to you, I was just some kid. To think that one day it would turn out like this, I--”

“Keith...”

“Shiro.” 

Keith’s arm slides around his neck and there’s a finger pressed against his mouth. He can feel Keith’s breath against his lips.

“...stop talking.”


End file.
